A colour, a place, a date

Xavier Glikson,
Text from the exhibition at L’Atelier du soleil, Fraïsse-des-Corbières, 2009

A colour, a place, a date. A colour, a place, a date. Another colour, another place, another date. In juxtaposition the colours blend or clash, sculpting on the canvas not the body of an individual, but the memory of his travels. As pictorial biographies the paintings translate in colour the sequence of movements of an individual. Red Paris, blue Brittany, purple Alsace, orange Corsica, the palette of the artist refers to a geographical division of territory. […] This constant attention to inventory and the tracking of our lives is found throughout the work of Pierre Millotte, as in the earlier series which in the form of city maps, record the places various people slept. Here again, the painting is at the service of a carefully codified biography, which allows the resulting burst of colours to infuse the paintings with luminous and joyful breath. Whether the systems are chronological or topographical representations, their expressive power is found in the series that are derived, and the surprises they hold for us.